Robespierre and Lenin: The Dos and Donts of Revolution

Occurring more than a century apart, the French Revolution and Russian Revolution of 1917 have more in common than you might initially assume. Their commonalities may be most apparent in the grass roots of the revolutions themselves. As we well know, the origins of the French revolution, while definitely orchestrated by decades of the ruling elite’s power abuses, were combusted by the socioeconomic state of France’s impoverished peasantry (M625). The stark, survival conditions, as well as the multitude of complaints and suggestions lobbied by various working factions (i.e. cahiers for the French National Assembly), was closely mimicked in the political climate of pre-revolution Russia. Even the outcry for greater representation and democracy resulting in the formation of the Russian Duma, an incredibly disempowered version of parliament, mimes the function of France’s third estate prior to the initiation of the French Revolution (M622, M769). While many additional factors played into the respective revolutions, up to and including the exploding Socialist platform of the late 19^th and 20^th centuries, it can be evidenced that the social unrest required to fuel the movements emerged from mutual roots.

Distinctions arise primarily as a direct result of the leadership requisite to run either revolution. Robespierre for the French; Lenin for the Russians. Traditionally, as seen with Robespierre, the leadership of a revolution, though channeled through an empowered group of elites within the movement, was still functioning akin to a democracy (M849). They did not cut out the voice of the French people driving the revolution, and the party was far from being above public influence. There was some limited variety to the factions operating within France’s revolutionary movement’s principles. This tolerance obviously had its limits, as the French Terror can attest; nevertheless, compared to Lenin’s conception of the Bolshevik leadership, the French Revolution would have been seemingly democratic.

Vladimir Lenin entertained vastly different views on the management of a revolution, and he employed these policies from the start. The Russian Revolution of 1917 is considered novel to the proceeding revolutions because foundationally, Lenin formed a super-concentrated, highly elite and devoted leadership of intellectuals and full-time revolutionaries to run the movement (M849). This pure, focused leadership of the revolution would ensure that it remained true to the core tenets of socialism, and later communism, with little to no debate or delay. Like Robespierre and his contemporaries, Lenin’s early years in power would be characterized by a period of intense violence and oppression in the name of progress, the “Red Terror” (M854). Lenin also masterfully harnessed the energies of the Russian people to his reforms, perhaps even more effectively than the French, with the seizing of nobilities’ properties and factories (M851). However, rather than allow the slow dissolution of his revolutionary movement and power as occurred in France, Lenin continued the trend of his Bolshevik leadership style by pushing Russia towards the one-party state model (M852). This allowed for the rapid spread of socialist/communist reform while simultaneously rooting the focused, authoritarian administration that would characterize Russian politics for decades.

There are many similarities between the French and Russian Revolutions, but the most interesting comparisons lie in their differences. They might emerge from similar conditions, yet their courses diverged immensely after their initial successes. The French Revolution, while by no means devoid of blood or intolerance, was one more embodied, perhaps, in national discovery. It was a metamorphosis experienced by everyone, not the least among them Robespierre who led and fell to its blade. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was less a discovery and more a well-executed strike. The Russia which arose from that turmoil and the years of the “Red Terror” was one with little deviation from Lenin’s initial vision, and its cool efficiency would linger well beyond its birth.